


incandescent

by tiptoe39



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-12 00:49:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11726061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiptoe39/pseuds/tiptoe39
Summary: Nursey has tattooed over his soulmark to conceal it. This is a source of endless frustration to Dex.





	incandescent

The first thing Dex notices about Nursey is that he’s disgustingly gorgeous. The second is his tattoo.

The first thing Nursey notices, apparently, is that Dex has noticed. He hikes up his sleeve to give Dex a better look. “You like it?”

“Yeah,” Dex says, “it’s nice,” and it is, but that’s not why he’s looking. He’s heard of guys doing ink to embellish their soulmark, and, well, he has to wonder. Because Nursey is the best-looking guy Dex has ever seen, and because Dex’s soulmark lives in a similar place – high up on his own arm, wedged underneath so it can’t be seen unless Dex lifts his arm above his head. His heart thuds dully as he stares at Nursey’s ink and wonders if this could be it.

Then Nursey opens his mouth and breaks Dex’s heart.

“It’s to conceal my soulmark,” he says. “I don’t believe in soulmates, ya know? I got it tattooed over as soon as I could. Don’t even remember which part of it’s the actual mark anymore.”

“How can you not believe in them?” The words fly out of Dex’s mouth without the benefit of going through his brain first. “Isn’t that like not believing in global warming? It’s pretty fucking obvious they’re actually a thing.”

Nursey smirks. “And here I’d pegged you for a Republican, Poindexter.”

“Conservative,” Dex corrects with a scowl. “Emphasis on _conserve_. I’m not a dumb hick.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Nursey laughs, flashing gorgeous teeth, and Dex is absolutely fucked. “Anyway, the point is this: I believe in wooing. Wining and dining. Being attracted, taking action, and falling the fuck in love. Like they dd in the old days, before people started flashing their soulmarks at everyone they thoughts was cute. Ya know? Where’s the romance in screening people for birthmarks, then just falling into bed the minute you meet someone just because you match up?”

“Saves time,” Dex points out, just to be contrary.

“Love should _take_ time,” Nursey says. “Hell, it’s the best use of time I can think of.”

Dex smirks. “Kids these days and their instant gratification?”

“Yeah, something like that,” Nursey answers with a short laugh.

Dex laughs too, but inside he’s sulking. Because he’s never wanted to see someone’s soulmark the way he wants to see the one hiding on this gorgeous, breezy, romantic man. He just wants to _know,_ because he’s never been pulled toward someone like this. This could be destiny – or it could be a one-sided, bullshit crush. And if that’s what it is, Dex wants to get over it soon. But apparently Nursey’s going to keep him hanging on indefinitely.

He’d better just stop hoping for it now. He’s not going to be the idiot who puts himself out there and then gets crushed.

* * *

They work well together on the ice. With every pass that connects, every stop they successfully pull off, Dex’s heart swells a little with hope, and he firmly squelches it. It doesn’t need to mean anything. They might just be good together.  Like partners, like d-men ought to be.

Besides, off the ice Nursey is …. frustrating. He dismisses everything Dex says with a “chill,” despite losing his own chill at the least provocation. He runs hot and cold, one day being eager to catch Dex’s ear, the next stomping away like he never wants to talk to him again. The next day, he’s right back in Dex’s face talking about some poet or some crazy person in his calc class. (Oh, yeah, Nursey takes calc. So add “genius” to “devastatingly handsome” in Dex’s mental dossier. He is so incredibly fucked.)

And for such a smart guy, Nursey’s incredibly stupid. He comes up with the most harebrained ideas and springs them on Dex at all hours. Once, at a kegster, he downs his tub juice and grins at Dex. “You wanna go up to the Reading Room and look at the moon?”

“You mean the roof?”

“Yeah, whatever. Let’s go.”

“We’d have to go through Bitty’s room. Or Jack’s.”

“So?”

“So, you don’t go into someone’s room without their permission.”

“Dude. Shitty doesn’t ask permission.”

“Shitty has an all-access pass to Jack’s room all the time, I’m pretty sure,” Dex says with a sigh. “What the hell do you want to look at the moon for, anyway?”

“I dunno.” Nursey shrugs and grins. “It’s pretty.”

“Well, go up there by yourself, then,” Dex says. “Howl at the moon or whatever, just don’t drag me into it.” He leaves Nursey standing there and heads into the kitchen for another slice of pie.

Another time,  Nursey corners him in the late afternoon. “Hey, let’s take the shuttle up to Boston.”

“What? When?”

“Now. We can go to the North End.”

Dex sputters. “Now?”

“Sure. You like Italian, right?” Fuck, Nursey’s grin. He’s so pleased with himself right now. He thinks he’s got such a brilliant idea.

“I also like what’s left of my spending money.” Dex scowls at him.

Nursey waves a dismissive hand. “Oh, it’d be my treat.”

“I don’t want to be your treat. Do I look like a charity case to you? Don’t answer that.”

Dex is starting to suspect that Nursey’s trying to rub Dex’s face in… something. His lack of adventure, or his working-class roots, or something. Nursey doesn’t go to Chowder with these kinds of bizarre schemes.

Yeah, an unhinged, pretentious jerk like Nursey can’t possibly be Dex’s soulmate. They can’t even stay in the same room for more than an hour without bickering about something. (Okay, so, like, half the bickering is actually kind of fun, but…) Dex tries to imagine what it would be like to go to bed with him, and then he laughs so hard he nearly cries. Nursey would have some antiquated ideas about how they were supposed to get undressed, and then he’d probably want to just kiss for _hours_ before they even got it on, and wouldn’t that be….

…well, unbelievably hot, but…

Anyway. The point is, Nursey is just not compatible with him. Not in the slightest.

If only he weren’t so … and damn it, Dex doesn’t have the word for it. _Bright_ is close, but not quite it. It’s like Nursey glows, with actual light, when he’s having a good time. When he suggests a crazy idea, or when he’s enthusing about poetry, or whatever… he’s hard to look away from. And Dex keeps catching himself looking. At kegsters, when Nursey’s telling a joke, when he’s celebrating a well-shot puck. He looks, and he can’t stop looking.

Maybe he’s jealous. He doesn’t have the mad charisma Nursey does. He can’t reel people in with a look. He can’t let his hair down and do whatever happens to come to mind, not the way Nursey can. He wishes he could.

And isn’t that the most frustrating part? He wishes to God he could just say yes, just let Nursey take him up to the roof or up to Boston or whatever. Maybe he should. Just once, maybe he should say yes.

* * *

He does. Once.

It’s the dead of winter and they’ve just won handily over Dartmouth. Dex scored; Nursey had the assist; and now they’re laughing as they swing their bags high on their way back from Faber. Nursey suggests they take a swing by the Pond. Dex is just giddy enough to agree.

Near the sidewalk, there are streetlights. But as they creep closer to the frozen lake, they fall into shadows and darkness. Dex can only barely make out Nursey’s silhouette ahead of him. When Nursey stops, pulling his bag open, it takes Dex a minute to realize he’s taking out his skates. He sucks in a breath, sharp, with the realization. Nursey turns to him. His eyes burn in the darkness. A smile slips onto Dex’s face, and he nods.

Under cover of night, they lace up and skate out onto the Pond. The ice is thick, a little bumpy and not as even as a well-kept rink, but it holds them up. Nursey skates in wide, lazy loops as Dex gets used to the feel of the lake beneath him.  Then he pushes off and joins Nursey; together, they take long laps around the north quarter of the Pond. Beneath them, the reflections of the faraway streetlights gleam like tiny stars trapped under the frozen surface.

Dex picks up speed. The wind stings his cheeks. He laps Nursey, hears a soft noise of surprise, waves and smirks as Nursey eats his dust. A laugh rings out in the night. and Dex realizes it came from him. He’s skating and laughing, and he’s free. A crazy new kind of freedom. It’s like he’s removed from his whole life, from everything but the deepest part of himself. Stripped bare by the wild night, he’s at once transported and utterly at home.

He turns, skating backward, and beckons to Nursey, teasing. Nursey revs up and comes at Dex with a sudden burst of speed. Speed at the expense of control – he loses balance and careers toward Dex with his arms spread wide like a first-timer. He collides with Dex – Nursey’s arms loop forward to grab his waist – and they go down, landing Dex painfully on his tailbone on the ice. Nursey comes crashing down onto him.

They’re panting. Dex mutters a curse. Nursey lifts his head from the crook of Dex’s neck. At once his mouth is dangerously close.

Nursey’s hand tightens on Dex’s waist. For a moment, there’s nothing but their breath and their bodies and the infinite, quiet night.

Then Nursey breaks into giggles. His shoulders shake and his head drops and he just laughs and laughs. Dex bursts out laughing too. They laugh until their stomachs hurt and they’re weak and teary-eyed. Laughter fills the night around them. It swells and it soars on the wind, and finally calms again. Fighting down the last remnants of their giggles, they help each other off the ice and back to civilization.

* * *

They make the playoffs. It’s spring semester, with finals coming up, and they have tons of studying to do. But half the time they stay up late just talking about the games, the teams, their chances. And flights of fancy, too – how they’ll both become campus celebrities after winning the NCAA championship with twin hat tricks, their first year of college. The stories get wilder and grander as the days go on, and the nights get longer. He’s at Nursey’s past midnight, past one and two a.m. these days. One night he just stays over, curls against Nursey on the couch, and goes to sleep.

He wakes up warm. The softness of sleep hangs over him like a blanket. He turns to face Nursey, who’s got a hand fisted in the cotton of Dex’s shirt, like he’s clutching a stuffed toy. Dex is ready to push him off, wake him up, but at the sight of Nursey’s face, he stops.

Nursey breathes evenly, eyelashes brushing his cheeks, lips pursed. He’s vulnerable here. Like a child. In sleep, he unconsciously pleads for a kind of tenderness Dex suddenly wants, more than anything, to deliver. He watches Nursey’s shoulders rise and fall, and his heart clenches in his chest. In that moment, he knows he’s in love.

His eyes fly to Nursey’s tattoo. Maybe– maybe if he looks hard enough, he’ll see the edges of the mark. He cranes his neck, squints, and peers – but Nursey’s arm is tucked against his side. If Dex could just loosen it a little. He runs his index finger along the looping line at the rim of the tattoo. He traces the latticework inward, inching his finger into the crevice between arm and chest. Slides his hand in, oh so gently, so carefully…

Nursey’s hand captures his wrist and pulls his hand down, firmly. His eyes are open, and they’re dark.

“Don’t,” he says.

Dex scowls. “Good morning to you too.”

“I mean it,” Nursey says. “Don’t.”

“I just wondered–” Dex starts, even as his brain rushes to tell him that once he says it, he can’t go back.

But Nursey cuts him off. “I know,” he says, and lets out a little sigh. “I wonder too. But I don’t want to know.”

Dex drops the subject. Maybe, he thinks later, he should have just pulled off his shirt, raised his arm and shown Nursey. But that would put so many questions on the table, and more importantly, it’s _not how Nursey wants it._ And Dex doesn’t want this to happen unless it’s the way Nursey wants it.

Before they head out for breakfast, Nursey stops in the doorway. He touches Dex’s hand, opens his mouth, takes a breath, and then lets it out in a sigh of unspoken words. Dex thinks for a moment of just leaning in and kissing him. Surely Nursey would expect it by now. But Nursey has an image of how these things are supposed to go, and Dex doesn’t want to betray it. He’s afraid to move. Afraid of getting it wrong.

He forces a smile and says, “So. Annie’s again?”

* * *

Playoffs keep going well. Jack plays like he’s on fire. Chowder is an impenetrable wall. They’re closer and closer to the championship. Dex can taste it now with every breath. They’re all living for it. And being around Jack, knowing how badly he wants this, lights the fire in their bellies all the more. If anybody ever deserved anything, Jack deserves this. The whole team knows it, Dex most of all. Dex respects nothing so much as he respects hard work, and Jack has done the hardest work of anyone he’s ever known. He doesn’t believe in much, given the utter unfairness of the world, but just for now, he wants to believe that all that hard work will mean something.

He believes it all the way through the second period of the last game. In the last few minutes of the period, the other team has the puck, and Dex finds himself rushing up the center lane after the other team’s forward, trying to catch him. He swerves, making a wild guess which way the puck will go.

He guesses wrong. The puck goes flying around his other side and right into the net. He hears Nursey’s curse before he’s registered what happened. The horn blows, and Dex ‘s blood runs cold.

The chill stays in his veins through the third period, through two other visitor’s goals and endless minutes sitting impotently on the bench. When the visiting team scores into an empty net at the end of the third, everything flips. Dex rises to his feet, boiling with rage. He watches, fists clenched and gut churning, as the infernal seconds tick down and the game ends. When they retreat into the locker room, he snatches off his helmet and spikes it into the center of the room. It bounces off the “S”and rolls to a stop in front of the goalie stalls. Dex doesn’t bother to retrieve it.

The Haus is a funeral parlor that night. Everyone sits around, eating too much food and drinking too much, but maintaining a deathly quiet. Every so often Bitty pipes up with a half-hearted pep talk about how hard everyone worked and how they should be proud of their accomplishments. Nobody’s feeling it. Eventually, even Bitty gives up.

Dex doesn’t have the stomach for food or for drink. He can’t help the guilt that’s tearing a hole in his stomach. If he had just stopped that one shot, maybe they’d be celebrating right now. He opened the door and let the bad luck in.

Nursey nudges him. “Roof.”

Dex doesn’t have the strength or the inclination to refuse.

They sneak upstairs, through Bitty’s room and out to the Reading Room. Nursey lets his feet dangle over the edge. Dex sits cross-legged next to him. The spring moon, at half-mast, blinks at them through the big tree in the front yard. Across the street, the lax bros are partying.

“Inconsiderate dicks,” Nursey says, nodding toward the lax house.

Dex shrugs. “It’s a free country. They don’t owe us anything.”

Nursey lifts an eyebrow at him. “It’s not about owing us. It’s about being nice.”

“Life isn’t nice.” Dex grumbles. “Shit happens.”

“Tell that to yourself,” Nursey says pointedly.

“What?”

“You’re blaming yourself for that goal,” Nursey says. “It was one goal. They got three more. This wasn’t your fault.”

“I didn’t–” but he did, he does, and Dex knows it. He sighs. “I should have been better.”

“I shoulda been there too,” Nursey offers. “We’re a pair.”

Dex cocks his head. “Yeah. Maybe.”

Nursey laughs. “See, I knew you wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to blame me for something.”

“Hey. I–” But it’s stupid to defend himself. Nursey has him dead to rights. Dex gives a short laugh. “Fair enough.”

They drop into silence. Dex shakes his head. He tries to banish the memory of that puck slipping right by him. “Shit,” he mumbles, and hangs his head.

“Hey.” Nursey’s voice is soft. “Can I show you something? Might cheer you up.”

Dex doesn’t see how anything could cheer him up right now. But what the hell. “Sure.”

Nursey takes Dex’s hand.

Dex flushes and stammers a “Wha-” but Nursey doesn’t let go. He lifts his arm and pulls Dex’s fingers to his tattoo. Lost for breath or words, Dex lets him. Guided by Nursey’s hand, Dex’s fingers drag along the inked skin, to the side, underneath– and then… achingly, slowly, carefully, along a familiar set of raised lines.

Dex withdraws his hand like it’s caught fire. “What the–”

“Yeah,” Nursey says.

“I thought you didn’t—”

“I couldn’t get a tattoo until i was 16.” Nursey says. “You really think I could forget something that sat on my skin for sixteen years?”

“So – you lied?”

“More or less.” Nursey shrugs. “I wanted to forget it. I almost convinced myself I had lost the shape. But then I saw, and–” He reaches out and touches Dex’s arm. Carefully, he slides his fingers up into Dex’s sleeve, touches the mark on the underside. Traces the same set of lines. Dex feels it like a current of electricity. The mark is copper wire, Nursey’s touch a battery.

He breathes shallowly, tries to find words. “I thought you didn’t believe in it. I thought you believed in wining and dining.”

“I tried,” Nursey tells him with a scowl. “You wouldn’t even let me take you into Boston, for Chrissake.”

“I wouldn–” Oh, God, he wouldn’t. A year’s worth of crazy propositions whirl before Dex’s eyes. A million times Nursey must have tried, a million times Dex took it just the wrong way and turned him down. He could have had all of that. He missed so much. He feels like a failure all over again, and Dex hangs his head, sighing deeply.

“Oh, shit,” Nursey mutters. “Dude, I’m sorry. I thought it’d cheer you up.”

“Yeah, well…. I’ve had a shit day,” Dex says, but he can’t help but smile as he says it. The hockey game already feels so far away. What’s happening here, now – _that’s_ important.  “How long did you know?”

“I suspected the minute I saw you,” Nursey says. “I never saw anyone like you before. The way you–” He waves a hand. Nursey, lost for words. Who’d have ever imagined it? Dex’s smile inches wider. “But I didn’t _see,_ not till – aw, shit, I don’t remember, it was in the fall, in the locker room…”

“And you didn’t say a thing. Nurse, you dumbass.” There’s a prickle beneath his skin, an urge. Dex has said no to so much this year, but this time he surrenders without a fight. He reaches over and grabs Nursey’s hand. Nursey stiffens beneath his touch, then breathes, letting their fingers tangle.

“I wanted it to be me,” Nursey says lamely. “Not the mark.”

“Dumbass,” Dex repeats. He squeezes Nursey’s hand. “It _was_ you.”

The grin on Nursey’s face then is – oh. Now Dex knows the word he’s been searching for all year. Incandescent. Nursey’s incandescent.

Dex kisses him.

He kisses him, and the night hushes around them. He kisses him, and he’s back on the Pond at midnight, skates whispering and wind biting, free and totally himself. He kisses him, tastes salt, and lifts his fingers to wipe the tears away. He has to check both their cheeks to see which one of them is crying. Dex kisses him, and he’s home.

Doubt rushes in with the coolness of the air as he pulls back. “I didn’t fuck that up, did I?” he mumbles.

Nursey’s laugh is low and soft. “Nah,” he says. “You’re good. Just–”

“Just?”

“Just tell me there’s more where that came from.” Nursey reaches out, looping an arm around his waist. He pulls Dex close. Shoulder to shoulder, side by side, they just sit, getting used to the newness and the rightness that is the two of them together.

“Looking at the moon, huh?” Dex says with a short laugh. “It’s not bad.”

Nursey’s fingers cinch at his waist, not entirely kindly. “We _coulda_ been doing it all year.”

“Oh, and that’s my fault? _Someone_ could have mentioned we were soulmates.”

“Harsh, Poindexter. I told you how I felt about it.”

“Oh, yeah. I heard _all_ about it. The Nursey doth protest too much.”

“Did you just…?”

“What? I’ve read some Shakespeare.”

Nursey bursts out laughing. There’s movement from downstairs. Someone shouts out the window, “You guys killing each other up there?”

“We’re fine,” Dex shouts down. He doesn’t sound half as cranky as usual. Doesn’t feel it, either. Everything seems to be thawing, coming back to life. And for once, Dex feels like he’s part of the reason. The embers of his and Nursey’s bond, glowing, shedding light on everything around them.

For once in his life, Dex feels a little incandescent, too.


End file.
